


Armistice

by Lexigent



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 09:38:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4014802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war and with it, Watson's service, is over, he comes back to Holmes' retirement cottage. Four years are a long time for a man to come to realisations, and now he has nothing to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armistice

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by my lovely, livejournal-less housemate.

I got off the train at Eastbourne Station with a sigh and rolled my shoulders as I exited through the ticket hall. It had been four years since I had left this part of the country behind - and with it, a lifetime of companionship with my good Holmes. 

 

It was strange, I reflected as I wandered on through the rolling green hills of the Downs, to find a piece of earth that looked this untouched by the last four years; this unchanged by a war fought not with swords and on horseback, but with machines of mass destruction that left young men bleeding into the earth of France, or returning home forever changed, alive but with injuries and disfigurements the like of which we had never seen before. 

 

I had done my duty to my country, but especially during those final months, I had been asking myself more and more if this was what I should be doing; if I was really going to make a difference; if a merciful dose of morphine wouldn't be better for some of those under my care than trying to stitch them up back together so they could go out and keep fighting. 

 

Underneath it all, of course, was the one question that had never entirely left me: would it not have been better for me to stay with Holmes out of harm's way, to continue living our lives as we had done at Baker Street? He had never had any interest in the fairer sex and I doubted that he would have found a lady to sweeten his old age. 

 

Moreover, I doubted he would even want that. What I wanted for myself, well, that was another thing entirely. 

 

Such were the thoughts that occupied me on my wander from the station to his retirement cottage. I had got the address from Mycroft. I had not written or telegraphed ahead, fearful of Holmes' reaction to either such missive. The part of me that was certain he never wanted to see me again had warred with the part of me that needed to see him and in the end, the latter had won out. Half-heartedly, I told myself that if he wasn't in, I would just be able to leave, go and turn my back once and for all on this chance at - what? A reunion? Of sorts, yes, but there was now more to it than that. 

 

War has a funny way with the hearts of men. It makes us grim and dedicated on the one hand, and brings us closer to our fellow soldiers in many ways, but it also makes us revalue what it is to be alive, to breathe clean air, to have friends and loved ones who worry about us, or about whose welfare we are concerned. I had returned to London after the fighting was over, and had, in my usual tenacious way, been determined to pick up where I had left off as best I could. I had found that I couldn't; that so much was missing from my life and how it had been before the war that it was all but impossible to pretend and continue. 

 

And so, finally, I had seen sense and come to the one place I hoped I would be able to find a kindred soul to reconnect me with myself. 

 

His cottage came into view beyond the ridge of one of the hills and my heart skipped a beat. A part of me wanted to turn on the heel, but I persisted, walking straight towards it as it lay peacefully in the sunshine. I could see the beehives behind the cottage, nest to the little vegetable garden. I smiled to myself. Who would have thought that Holmes, city creature that he was, would take up a life in the country and thrive? Then again, men change more than they realise sometimes. 

 

I knocked on the door and stepped back by the measure of a foot. I heard footsteps inside and felt my blood rushing in my ears. I closed my eyes for a second to compose myself, and then the door was opened, and my old friend stood before me. 

 

I would say he had not changed a day, but that would be a lie. He looked well; still slender as ever but with a healthy redness in his cheeks and was dressed in linen trousers and shirt. For a moment, we stared at each other silently. Then, slowly, a smile crept across his face. 

 

"Watson," he said and clasped my hand with feeling. His mouth twitched as though he was trying to say something else, but nothing came out, and so I replied, "Yes, Holmes," for want of something better to say. 

 

"Watson," he said again, his tone changed, laden with an emotion I wanted to examine more closely, and then, "Come in, come in, it is good to see you." 

 

I stepped over the threshold and followed him in. I looked around me as we went. The cottage was small and simple, but clean and homely. 

 

It _suited_ Holmes. 

 

"I was just writing in the back garden," Holmes explained as he walked through and out of the other side of the cottage. There were some papers, a pencil, and a fountain pen on a small table next to a deep wooden deckchair. He gathered them into a pile and put a stone on top. 

 

"There is tea in the kitchen," he said as he sat down, "but I'm not certain as to its temperature or drinkability." His words reminded me of all the times he had left half-eaten meals and cold cups of coffee or tea around the flat, too engrossed in some problem or other to pay much heed to these small details of domestic life. I could not suppress a chuckle. 

 

"Some things never change." And with that, I went in search of tea. 

 

He was leaning back in his deckchair when I came back - the teapot had, surprisingly, still been hot, and the tea was strong and reviving.

"It was still warm," I said as I sat down beside him.

"Good," he said - and closed his eyes again, continuing to laze in the sun.

I wasn't sure what I had expected of this meeting. True, I had been on the receiving end of a similar reunion decades earlier, but in my own defense, I never actually faked my own death and made my friends believe it. But be that as it may, four years are a long time for a man to think and come to certain realisations.

I had never anticipated it would be easy for me. Neither him nor me have ever been particularly vocal about our affairs outside of our mutual business. What I hadn't credited was Holmes' side of things. In that moment, I genuinely had no idea how he felt about me, or my visit, or anything.

"Holmes," I said gently. "It is good to see you too."

It seemed as good a place to start as any. He raised an eyebrow and nodded as if encouraging me to continue.

I cast my gaze down. "There were times during the last four years when I doubted I should ever see you again." A deep ache welled up in my chest, but I continued. "So I made myself a promise, that I would seek you out if I survived that hell."

"So why didn't you?"

And there it was - the question I had turned over in my mind so many times and yet not found an answer. But now I had to answer Holmes.

"I was afraid."

"Of what?"

Our eyes met and for a second, I was lost. Then I took a breath and, with a sudden spark of mischief, said, "Can you not guess?"

"Oh, Watson," he said, his voice low and rumbling. "You know I never guess."

"Well, then." 

He sat up and at once I could see that old fire behind his eyes. The line of his back was not what it had been, and his hair was greying at the temples, but his mind was still razor-sharp as ever. That thought comforted me beyond measure.

"People are afraid of two things in this way," he began, "beginnings and endings. The first assumption - that you were afraid of an ending - is that you were afraid because you thought I might have changed. Grown infirm, perhaps, or feeble of mind, or harbouring some grudge that would cause me not to speak to you. I dismiss all these. As you have clearly spoken to Mycroft to find out my current abode, you could have inquired as to all of these and more besides, and if you had found the cause of any of those fears true then you never need have come."

I sighed. "As I said, some things never change."

He continued, apparently unperturbed by my interjection.

"I do not claim to be an expert on the new branches of the study of the mind - psychoanalysis, as it is commonly called - but from extrapolation I would assume that witnessing loss and destruction on a hitherto unprecedented scale would cause a man to evaluate the balance of his deeds and his life, and realise what it is he treasures most. His hopes would set on this treasure, to have something to cling to amid the madness going on around him, and if he made it out, he would seek out that thing he so prized."

He paused and steepled his hands, a gesture so familiar I think it must be ingrained on the insides of my eyelids. "That thing. Or that person."

I had seen Holmes do this so many times to other people - deduce their life story right up to the point where the game stopped being fun, and so forcing their hand by shock or surprise; and I have chided him for it on more than a few occasions. But this time, I was downright thankful.

"Yes, I believe so," I said. And then, before I could think better of it, "Your talk of beginnings and endings is not wrong, but I think I came here to find out if this is one or the other."

I forced myself to look at him and not falter. His gaze lingered on my face like a fond caress, as if I were a new and strange object he was examining through a lens.

"Do you know how long I've waited for you," he finally said, voice barely above a whisper.

"I can only imagine," I whispered in return, and then I nearly lost my balance as he pressed his lips against mine with a force that belied his slender frame, and I did my best to respond in kind.

I was under no illusions as to what a life with Holmes would be like, or as to the challenges we would continue to face in this world. But that afternoon, as his arms slipped around my waist, as our hands intertwined, I knew with a certainty that I had felt but once or twice in my life before that this was _right_ and that whatever was waiting around the corner, if we were only together, we would be able to weather it all.


End file.
